


Artistic Freedom

by Clarisse (transnymphtaire)



Series: Advent Calendar 2016 [5]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Art Exhibition, M/M, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-05
Updated: 2016-12-05
Packaged: 2018-09-06 18:49:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8764798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transnymphtaire/pseuds/Clarisse
Summary: Dreams can be captured through art, but not even perfection can live up to reality.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Unbetaed.

_Cigarette smoke against a broken window. Long fingers resting on dusty piano keys. Red scratches over bony shoulder blades. Leather boots leaving trails of mud on a clean floor. A stormy ocean captured in a stranger’s irises._

He has wasted hours of his life on recreating the pictures in painstaking detail, only to pin them with clothespins on the threads covering his bedroom walls, showcasing his life. They're a shameful secret that he hide in plain view - they're his loathed masterpieces. He looks at them and see only the flaws, the details that he couldn't recreate with absolute perfection.

Harry wasn't a perfectionist until he started getting those dreams.

Growing up, Harry was the kind of child that explored with his hands and mouth. He got dirty, he made mistakes, and most importantly - he found beauty in the flaws of the world. When he got a camera for his 15th birthday, Harry filled it with pictures of his family and friends. He captured the moment that his godfather got ready to propose, the giddy smile on his friend’s face as they jumped off the swing, his sister’s rising panic as her ice cream started to fall to the ground. None of the pictures had perfect clarity, but they told a story, and that's the only thing that used to matter.

Then Harry turned eighteen.

Movies and social media has always enjoyed painting the picture of soulmate dreams in perfume and roses, even when they're full of sorrow and heartbreak. There’ll be a girl and a pair of identical twins, a boy in a coma, a couple that fell in love but dreams of others. And it all ends in happiness for the soulmates - no one remembers the ones that get left behind.

For Harry, his first soulmate dream is a nightmare. It’s the sensation of drowning against a backdrop of bony limbs, so white they're shining beacons in the dark waters.

He wakes up not knowing if his soulmate is alive, and afraid of falling asleep again. He doesn't try to capture that dream in pictures.

It takes days before his next soulmate dream comes, and it’s days that Harry spends wallowing in panic induced anxiety. The flickers of flame from a lighter and the smoke coming from a burnt up letter is like a calming embrace after that.

The first picture he takes with the new camera that he got for his birthday is of a flickering lighter flame; it gives him hope and he keeps it under his pillow to look at when he needs to calm down. The edges are smudged and wrinkled after one too many bad dreams.

* * *

_A brilliant smile showcasing pearly white teeth and dimples. Sun-kissed cheekbones with stars of freckles. Milk chocolate skin against white sheets. An emerald green eye hidden behind a camera lens. Messy black curls spread over green grass and decorated with wildflowers._

He has green paint ingrained into the skin of his fingers after spending hours on finding the right shade, and repeatedly failed to reproduce it. There's no way to recreate the flecks of emotion with only his brush and paint though it does not discourage him from trying. He sits with his back bent over the paints, a cigarette kept in place between his lips, and classical music playing through his earphones.

Tom has always been a perfectionist.

As a child, Tom would sit inside and read instead of being outside in the dirt. His clothes were kept pristine, partly of his interest, and partly of his grandparents’. They told him that the rest of the world were flawed, and they had to keep up the image of perfection. Painting was his first act of rebellion; stains on his skin but never on his clothes. Tom painted the imperfections of his grandparents, and they had the paintings burnt after they discovered them. It did not stop him, only made him hide the flaws in the whole picture.

Then Tom turned eighteen.

Abstractly, he had been aware that everyone has at least one soulmate, and they may be platonic, or romantic, or just plainly sexual, but he had never expected the dreams. There’s no portrayal that can make the actual soulmate dreams justice. It wasn’t the clear picture that he had thought it would be.

For Tom, his first soulmate dream was nothing but the sound of laughter. It warms him as nothing else has; laughter has never fitted into his grandparents’ perfect world.

He wakes up with a rare smile on his lips. He makes his first abstract painting as he tries to capture the emotions of laughter, and the colours judges him.

The next soulmate dream comes already the next night, and it’s a mug of hot cocoa in front of a crackling fire. Tom finds himself unable to relate to the feelings of happiness but he paints it anyway.

It takes a week before he finally sees his soulmate’s face in clarity, and then three months before he has a painting that captures the likeness in complete detail. There’s seven unfinished paintings hidden away in his closet of the same scene.

* * *

Art doesn’t belong kept inside in a home. It belongs where people can see it, and feel what the responsible artist felt when creating the pieces.

That’s why Harry allows his parents’ friend to hang his photos in a gallery.

That’s why Tom allows his barmy professor to borrow some of his paintings.

That’s why the two of them are at the same exhibition.

* * *

He only went at his professor’s invitation to see how his paintings are presented; he gave strict instructions for the order and the best lightning. He doesn’t get as far as his paintings before a wall of photographs capture his attention.

Separately the pictures seem unrelated to him although all of them tell stories of their own, but the more he looks - the more he find himself in every single photograph. The person pictured could have been him if not for his own knowledge that it’s not. Then he look closer and realise that all of them are part of different persons, all making up an almost perfect picture of him.

It’s first after that thought forms in his mind that he remembers that the exhibition is focused around soulmates.

* * *

He has already seen his wall of photos, all of them taken to tell the story of his soulmate dreams. He considers to leave after that, but he owes his parents’ friend to at least take a look around the rest of the exhibition.

There’s seven paintings hanging on a wall not far from his photographs, and that’s where he chose to go. As he comes closer, he firstly notice that the model looks like him, and secondly that the beautiful portraits doesn’t have the emotion - the life - that he associate with art. He comes closer still, and then he stands in front of one of the paintings and it’s like looking into a mirror if the mirror portrayed how he looked a few months ago.

It seems silly to hope, but the overwhelming proof is in front of him. His soulmate must be at the exhibition.

* * *

Harry turns to look toward his wall of photographs at the same time that Tom turns towards his wall of paintings. For a moment they simply glance over each other, then eyes wander back and catalogue details, matches them with the works of art behind their own back, and suddenly they’re moving toward each other as if they were magnetic.

“You’re more beautiful in real life.” / “You fucking scared me!”

“What did you see?” / “What- no- you’re the beautiful one!”

“Should we perhaps take this elsewhere?”

“You’re paying. It’s the least you could do.”

Their glances are heated with annoyance and appreciation. Harry takes Tom’s hand in his, and it feels like a perfect fit.

“I’m Tom.”

“Harry.”

“Lead the way then, Harry.”

It’s the start of their biggest project yet, and they have all the artistic freedom that they could dream of.

**Author's Note:**

> The mirroring effect is a really interesting writing tool.
> 
> Sorry that it's a bit short, not really having a good day mental-wise.


End file.
